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IT: How to read users from Active Directory on-premises

You can read users from Active Directory on prem automatically and then you do not need to add/update users manually in Xink.

When new users are created in your Active Directory, they are automatically added to your Xink EMPLOYEE list.

It's all automatic so hires and fires are reflected in Xink as soon as they're updated in your on-premise AD.

This is the easiest way for IT to maintain email signature information like name, mobile number, title etc..

You can start by running ADExport from your own domain PC just to try it out. When you have successfully seen users exported into Xink, you can always move it to a server and set it up to run as a scheduled task in a production environment.

Log into your Xink account > You will find your account's secret token in Preferences menu (the top right corner):

Download Export Tool and save in your file system. It is a single file and no installation is needed.

Copy your AD Export secure token.Finally set up emsadexport (Xink ADExport tool) to run scheduled on a Windows Server (e.g. a file server).You can choose your own Schedule depending on how often you want it to update data from your AD.

Before you read data from your Active Directory, scroll down to learn about the different switches and examples later in this guide.Then, when you're ready, run the file manually to start with so you know it exports as expected before you schedule it to run on your server.

Don't run it on your Domain Controller or Exchange Server.Start on your Windows domain PC.

If you only need to export a part of your AD, then apply one of the switches described below (use the examples later in this guide).

How to run 'emsadexport' to export user contact details from your Active Directory on prem to Xink Employees

You can run the file as:

.BAT,

.CMD or

Command Prompt, where you browse to the directory where you have saved it:

Export switches

The export tool comes with a number of switches you can use.

The switch can be added anywhere after the emsadexport file name.

/secret

The secret switch include your unique account token. The result of this switch, is that your AD data ends up in your Xink account.

P.S.You always need to include the /secret switch when exporting:

/secret:[INSERT-YOUR-SECRET-TOKEN]

/domain

Export only users who belong to a specific OU.

/group

Exports only users who belong to a certain group (both security groups and distribution groups are supported). The value of the switch is the group name from Active Directory (not the OU name).

P.S

If the group contains blank space in the name, you need to write the Group name in quotes.

Example: The Group name is 'Sales North America' so your switch will be /group:"Sales North America".

P.S.S

Reading from groups are much slower than reading from OUs.

/remove+

This switch removes users not included in the export.

E.g. your Xink account has 100 users and next time it found only 2 users to export, then these 2 users will remain. All others will be deleted in Xink.

C:\emsadexport.exe /secret:[INSERT-YOUR-SECRET-TOKEN] /remove+

/field

This switch supports your own custom AD names if you have an AD with extended schema.

When adding this switch nothing will actually be exported to your Xink account. It will display the users who will be included in the export. This switch is often used in connection with the initial setup to make sure that only a minor selection of users will be exported. Remember to remove the switch when you actually want to export the users.

@switch

This switch will read a text file with your switches. If you have both /secret, /Group and /remove+ options you can just edit these in a text file.

You can edit your switches in this file and the run this line (where the file in this example is called 'switches.txt':

C:\emsadexpot.exe @switches.txt

Example #1

Export all users from Active Directory with an email address (replace [INSERT-YOUR-SECRET-TOKEN] with your token):

Example:

C:\emsadexport.exe /secret:Ok+v67Le2Tahs62lOWy0Ag==

C:\emsadexport.exe /secret:[INSERT-YOUR-SECRET-TOKEN]

Example #2

This command will export users from this OU: 'OU=Users,OU=Company Name,DC=gt,DC=local'. All other existing users in your Xink account will remain:

This command will export users from this OU: 'OU=Users,OU=Company Name,DC=gt,DC=local'. All other existing users in your Xink account will be removed and only the users from this OU will be in your Xink account: